chronicles of a girl on the run with her dog

I’m Not A Big Baby

I met with a new chiropractor today. He has a really fun name, that I won’t mention here, but I will call him C.W. He is the latest and I believe last medical advisor I plan on seeing for my plantar fasciitis. I really liked him.

I told him my sob story about plantars in about 90 seconds, just the same amount of time The Voice gives it’s singers to perform. By now, I have it down.

We talked about my short leg, the left one. He thinks my femur bone (that’s the one in the thigh) is shorter than the other.

He had me do some squats. Then he had me do them with the weight on the outer part of my feet. I could hardly squat down very far. Then he made me hold a long stick above my head and squat. My squat was even weaker. I told him I wasn’t very flexible and I had weak hips and calves. He said that my mid back is really tight. He recommended rolling it, something I used to do, on my foam roller.

Lying on my back on the table, he ran me through some basic strength tests and there was weakness in my left hip. The left foot is where I suffer with PF. He used this laser light therapy at this point. I just now briefly read that it’s for pain.

it looked something like this

It shone a red light and he aimed it on my skin (on my lower abdomen I think.) It didn’t hurt. Then ran my left hip through a few active release techniques. After a minute he turned it off and tried the strength test again. Violà! I passed the test. He said, “you are strong. You don’t have weak hips, or weak anything”.

i need to remind myself of this, everyday

The next part of the exam he had me lie on my stomach and he attached the electric stimulator to both feet on the base of my heels and on the upper calves with a pulsing action. He also put a few on my lower back which always bothers me. He put a heating pad on top of that. It felt good.

The pulsing feet was a bit uncomfortable. But I persevered. He wanted to get the blood flowing to those parts of my body before he pulled out the tools of torture! The Graston tools:

there is something medieval looking about these… tools

I have done, as I always do and probably shouldn’t, a fair amount of reading on the internet about these tools and their use to break up scar tissue in various parts of the body. Every review had one common denominator: Pain. Men were reduced to babies with tears in their eyes and shouting out one expletive after another. Words I won’t repeat here. So I braced myself. My Chiropractor even told me to put my arms on the sides to hold on. He said it was gonna hurt.

I always thought I had a very low pain threshold. And you could even consider me a crybaby. I mean, I cried almost everyday for the past week and a half. But not today. And I realized something. I can tolerate a lot of pain. Physical pain. I can run a marathon with a strained calf. Or plantar fasciitis. Or run with blisters on my feet. I have given birth twice. I thought I was being a whimp, getting an epidermal, but I did have severe back labor. I never shouted out or cried when it came time to push. You moms know… it hurts. So, I am not a cry baby, not when it comes to the physical stuff. I can tolerate A LOT apparently. Thank God for that, because when it comes to emotional pain… all I can say is… wah, wah, wah. Someone please pass me a tissue.

We all have our weaknesses I suppose.

Back to the Graston Technique. He started with my calf. It hurt, sure, but I didn’t make a peep. I don’t even think I tightened my grip or was breathing deep. Even C.W. said… you tolerate pain well. He said, I don’t want to push any harder because then it could hurt you. I don’t know… maybe he was going easy on me? He advised me that it would hurt later and that I would be bruised. Yep.

ouch! no, he didn’t go easy on me.

It didn’t even photograph how purple and swollen it looks! It does hurt now to touch! But not enough to take anything. Not like the Cortisone shot after effects. I did rub some Arnica cream on it after I got home. He swiftly moved to my heel, the bottom of my foot next. That too didn’t hurt and he said he worked out all the bumps and stuff. I think I am just so happy to finally be getting some kind of therapy on my feet, that there is no pain that will deter me!

He also put some heat thingy on my heel. A thingy, because I don’t really know what he did, I had my face down in a tissue covered cushioned gasket. He told me to just let him know when it got too hot. But that if I could tolerate the heat, all the better. Maybe it was another laser light? But the first one never got hot, so… I don’t know. He may have done this while he was performing the Gastron. I can’t remember. After he finished he said my heel was nice and smooth.

I must say, my heel feels really good right now, 12 hours later. I’m very happy about that. I’m also bare foot at the moment, per his suggestion to take the walking boot off for a little bit and stretch my foot. Nothing too crazy.

Lastly, he did what chiropractors do best. He gave my feet an adjustment, something I never had done before. The he adjusted my hips and lower back and my mid back.

He gave me a list of some exercises to perform. I need to work out the kinks in my hips and glutes. Foam rolling, squats (the hard ones I could not do), rolling on a ball, roll my calfs with the stick, oh God, some other stuff I wrote down somewhere. You get the picture. And see him again in a week. Right after I see the orthopedic doc who gave me the walking boot. That means, maybe only 1 more week in the boot. Maybe. That means, maybe, just maybe I might be able to try to do a bit of… oh, I don’t know, I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say… walking. Ha ha, I bet you thought I’d say running, but I don’t think I should dive into that just yet. Frankly, I’m scared.

You must learn to walk before you can run. Patience Grasshopper, as they say.

Overall, I am really happy with todays visit. I felt like I was given the royal treatment today (which is appropriate for this…um… princess.) The works. He did everything I wanted and more! After the last round of doctors and therapies, this was by far the best and most for my money. I can’t wait til next week for my second treatment!!

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2 thoughts on “I’m Not A Big Baby”

Oh, the Graston tools. I cringed just reading about that. When my shin splints were flaring up prior to my second marathon, my chiro did four sessions on the front and sides of my lower legs to break up all the scar tissue and straighten out all the muscle fibers. I had purple legs for a long time. Never cried, but might have broken a few fingers gripping the table. Congrats on post 101, but more importantly, congrats on finding a good doc that you have good rapport with…hopefully that turns into good results and the ability to start running pain free again soon!